As debate rages about the motive that drove the 15-year-old boy Farhad Jabar to commit an act of terror when he killed NSW Police employee Curtis Cheng earlier this month, it can be revealed that every publicly known teenager who has travelled overseas to fight in Iraq or Syria or is believed to have been radicalised, attended government-run high schools in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland.

The revelation comes amid concerns that religious teaching and prayer groups in public schools are either not effective enough or have been manipulated by religious groups as a cover for proselytising activities.

Premier Mike Baird announced an audit of prayer sessions at public schools following allegations a year 12 student at Epping Boys High was trying to influence students into adopting his extremist views in the school yard. He has also previously urged public school principals to call a dedicated hotline if they suspect extremist behaviour.

Concerns had also been raised last year about lunchtime religious sessions run by students at another school – East Hills Boys High – after one of the students involved ran away in an apparent attempt to join Islamic State.

The 16-year-old, known as Feiz, left Australia with the so-called Ginger Jihadi, Abdullah Elmir, a boy from Bankstown who had been attended Condell Parks Boys High before starting work as a butcher. Feiz was found and returned to Australia by his father and never made it to Syria. Elmir has since featured in IS propaganda videos.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has issued a plea for all Australians to be tolerant and united, describing violent extremism as a challenge to the most fundamental Australian values. Mr Turnbull said that people who tried to tag all Muslims with responsibility for the "crimes of a tiny minority and convert that into a general hatred of all Muslims" were undermining anti-terrorism efforts.

He has also called urgent talks next week with law enforcement and government agencies to discuss strategies to stop teenagers from being radicalised.

In the days since the Parramatta murder of Mr Cheng by Jabar, Muslim leaders and educators have spoken out saying that religious schools have not experienced the same problems as public schools with students being radicalised.

Fairfax Media has been told that the Friday prayers that were being held at Arthur Phillip High School, which Jabar had attended, had been suspended in September, a move that possibly influenced Jabar to go to the Parramatta mosque to pray.

It is understood the prayers had been held for almost 10 years at the school without any trouble. They had been recently led by the religious education instructor who had been delivering the regular religious education program at the school but were temporarily suspended after the boys had been misbehaving in an incident that was completely unrelated to the prayer sessions.

Silma Ihram, a pioneer of Muslim education in the West, and the founder and former school principal of the Noor Al Houda Islamic College in Sydney said she has always been an advocate of effective Islamic schools and instruction.

"It is the best antidote to radicalisation. Where you have effective schools with role models and mentoring for the boys that are vulnerable it works. Often these kids are crying out for help."

"My experience is that the male teaching figures are huge influences on boys lives often playing a father role and filling a gap –  they often keep in touch with their former students for many years after.

Ms Ihram has called for an increased number of chaplains and more training and mentoring. She is pushing for funding for programs to train mentors for schools.

Greens MP Dr John Kaye has expressed concern that prayer groups are being manipulated by different religious groups for proselytising and he believes public schools should be free from religious pressures.

Cathy Byrne, a sociologist in religion from Southern Cross University, says religious schools are doing it better.

She believes that religious instruction classes in public schools are "problematic" because they segregate children of different religions instead of letting them study and learn together. Dr Byrne said children learn best when interacting with each other and talking about issues and that can be a vaccination against extremism.

Keysar Trad the former chief executive of the Australian International Islamic College Muslim school in Queensland said that children need to be given a strong understanding of their religion.

Mr Trad delivered a sermon in Artarmon on Friday saying that parents need to speak to their children and educate them about their religion.

Mr Trad said it must particularly be hammered home to them that it is wrong to take a life.

"We are not allowed to take a life – even an animal life – unless it is for food."

Farhad Jabar was never seen wearing Islamic style clothing. Nor was he known to talk about religion. Yet the 15-year-old public high school student still became radicalised and committed the most violent of acts – murder.

But the lack of religiosity displayed by Jabar did not surprise one of the world's foremost terrorism experts, Bruce Hoffman, who says that religion doesn't seem to be playing a huge role in the current radicalisation of individuals.

Professor Hoffman, who is the director of the Centre for Security Studies and director of the security studies program at Georgetown University, believes there has been a deliberate twist in the recruitment of young people.

"It has long seemed to me that ISIS – and other groups, but ISIS in particular – are deliberately framing their message in a style reminiscent of the writer and thinker Frantz Fanon's clarion call to violence over half a century ago in his book The Wretched of the Earth, " he said.

Professor Hoffman, who has studied terrorism for almost 40 years, said that Fanon had "portrayed politically motivated violence as cleansing, cathartic and empowering: a self-satisfying blow struck against an oppressive, subjugating Western system".

He has referred to IS recruitment videos, like that featuring former Bankstown boy Abdullah Elmir,​ known as the Ginger Jihadi, that have included English and Australian accents and played up the invitation to fight and make history.

Professor Hoffman has said that a new generation of celebrity fighters is also being created, heralded and extolled.

"You mix a sense of purpose, empowerment, catharsis, and a sense of belonging to something larger than one's self with an impressionable teenager, fluent with social media and fuelled by rage that he or she is told is justified and can be usefully channelled into targeting the oppressor and, sadly, you have a 15-year-old intent on violence," he said.

"How we counter this, is a huge problem."

Comment by Kirsty Needham

The involvement of the schoolboy terrorist Farhad Jabar with a Muslim lunchtime prayer group will further vex Christian groups bridling at government scrutiny of their activities in schools.

An audit of every NSW school prayer group was conducted this year after allegations that radical views were being preached at Epping Boys High School.

The NSW government's response hasn't been made public yet, but Premier Mike Baird said this week the Parramatta shooting would accelerate the development of programs to tackle radicalisation.

No reports of extremist preaching were made to the department after the audit began in July. But all schools were told in an email in August that new rules applied to prayer groups: parental permission must be obtained, activities must be monitored, and no proselytising. The email said immediate action was required.

The reaction created strange bedfellows.

Hizb ut Tahir delegate Reem Allouche speaks at the controversial group's events about the marginalisation of Muslim women by Western politicians – particularly NSW Christian Democrat MP Fred Nile's "own personal crusade" to ban the burqa.

Reacting to the prayer group directive, Allouche has started a change.org petition, "Teachers should not spy on children", in which she describes herself as a primary school teacher.

A Hizb ut Tahir spokesman confirmed she was a delegate, but said the petition was an independent community initiative by Allouche.

The Reverend Nile is equally heated up about the prayer rules. At a recent parliamentary hearing, he complained to the government that "hundreds of other groups have been caught up in this instruction".

The headline across the latest issue of Reverend Nile's monthly magazine screams "Save our scripture". Inside, religious leaders line up to claim Christian prayer groups are "in the crosshairs". 

Youth Works, the Anglican schools ministry, is running banner ads on Google reading: "SRE (special religious education) is under attack".

The Baird Government relies on Reverend Nile's balance of power in the NSW upper house, a position the Christian Democrats have occupied for decades.

The power of the CDP can be seen in the fact NSW is the only state to legislate access to special religious education in public schools, and the recent alteration of school enrolment forms to remove the option for ethics classes.

In the secularist versus Christian evangelical ground war being fought over NSW schools, Reverend Nile's lobby has largely prevailed.

But all this was before last Friday's terrorist attack, carried out by an Arthur Phillip High School student, who had participated in a school prayer group that was suspended by the principal in September because of disruptive behaviour.

The clear and present danger of schoolyard radicalisation is a wholly new dilemma facing the Baird government, which must transcend transactional politics with the CDP.

The firm message in the wake of the Parramatta attack from Baird and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has been that the Muslim community is part of the solution to radicalisation.

They have sought to bring Muslim leaders into the tent in planning the community response.

To single out Muslim students in schools, with special rules that don't equally apply to Christian, Buddhist or Jedi, would undermine this approach. 

smh.com.au